1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for dividing a content such as a TV broadcast program into a plurality of sections.
2. Description of the Related Art
What has become widely available in recent years is a home server which automatically records contents that suit users' tastes into a mass-capacity DVD or hard disk, based on keywords that have been registered in advance.
In the case where such a home server is used to record television broadcasts, the broadcasts are typically recorded in units of broadcast programs and they are regarded as separate contents. However, users may not necessarily desire to view each recorded program in its entirety, but often desire to view only part of the program.
For example, contents such as music programs or news programs can be divided into sections that are each meaningful and cohesive in substance, such as pieces of music or items of news. Users often desire to view only sections of the programs in which their favorite singers appear or interesting items of news are reported. As understood from this, there are cases where contents are each divided into a plurality of sections (hereinafter referred to as “meaningful sections”) that are each cohesive in substance and users would like to select meaningful sections to view.
There are known techniques that analyze images and audio information of a content such as a broadcast program and divides the content into a plurality of sections based on a predetermined algorithm so that the users can view the content in units of divided sections.
In such known techniques, dividing each content into a plurality of sections so as to be close to or resemble the actual meaningful sections with high accuracy requires highly accurate complex analyses of images and audio information. Such analysis requires high processing ability and cost of the apparatus that performs the analysis. For this reason, this function is not suited for commercial home servers.
For the above-stated reason, there are systems in which a service center is provided with an information supply apparatus having high processing ability. The information supply apparatus divides each content into a plurality of sections, and supplies home servers, which are used by users at home and cannot divide the contents into sections, with section information which shows how each content is divided into sections. With such a construction, the users of the home servers can use the contents in units of sections that constitute the contents.
Meanwhile, the contents distributed to each home are increasing in amount and number due to widespread broadcasting services in variety such as ground-wave television broadcasting, satellite broadcasting, cable TV broadcasting, and video streaming distribution. It is therefore unrealistic for the information supply apparatus provided in the service center to analyze all of the contents distributed by the variety of broadcasting services to divide them into sections, and supply the section information to home servers. Accordingly, all of the pieces of section information for the contents are not supplied to the home servers. As a result, in terms of the contents for which the section information is not supplied from the information supply apparatus, home server users cannot view the contents in units of sections.